Theater review: In 'Finish Line,' the truth speaks for itself

Thursday

Mar 16, 2017 at 4:02 PMApr 4, 2017 at 7:13 AM

Dana Barbuto The Patriot Ledger

The Shubert Theater stage is starkly bare. Actors stand on the boards wearing every-day clothing – jeans, khakis, sweaters, flannel shirts. Strings of white lights provide the only illumination. The simple unadorned scene, created by scenic and lighting designer Jeff Adelberg, speaks volumes about that day – April 15, 2013. Three people were killed in the Boston Marathon attacks, and more than 260 were injured. Darkness choked the city, but when it mattered most, resilient Bostonians came together with compassion and resolve to take care of their own. “Boston Strong” became their motto as these everyday people – doctors, nurses, journalists, runners, teachers, police officers, firefighters – shined light into the darkness with simple acts of kindness.

Evil doesn’t win. Love triumphs. That is the essence of “Finish Line,” an honest and raw documentary play about Boston’s darkest day. Co-created by Scituate playwright Lisa Rafferty and Joey Frangieh, and presented in association with the Boston Theater Company, it draws from interviews with survivors, runners, first responders, spectators and others. A cast of 12 use verbatim transcripts to convey each person’s story, right down to the every last “um,” “like” and “I don’t know” in their dialect.

“Finish Line” opened Wednesday night to a standing ovation in the Boch Center at the Shubert Theatre and plays through March 26. The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission.

Less a recreation (the bombers aren’t even mentioned by name), than a focus on the real people, the play depicts how those affected by violence emerge stronger in the end. Like Carol Downing (local favorite Paula Plum), who was just half a mile from the finish line when the bombs exploded, injuring two of her daughters. Plum, pulling double duty as news anchor Maria Stephanos, is affecting in both parts. But she’s most powerful sharing the stage with Karen MacDonald as Liz Norden, a mother of five whose two sons lost limbs in the blast. MacDonald and Plum tag-team what is the show’s most compelling scene. It’s a gut punch. The actresses deliver from their hearts an unedited monologue about every mother’s worst nightmare – their children getting hurt. Their dueling tales of agony are real and personal and it elicits tears.

Rafferty and Frangieh use the day’s natural chronology to frame the play. We meet the characters in the early hours before the race, when it was still a “beautiful day” and you could smell the adrenaline and euphoria in the air. Each character takes their turn recalling where they were and how their path led to Boylston Street. When the bombs go off, the theater goes dark and silent. It’s unsettling.

The loosely constructed narrative picks up with the perspective of medical staff, anxiously awaiting the first wave of patients at area hospitals. Mass. General trauma surgeon Dr. David R. King (Lewis D. Wheeler), a war veteran who ran the marathon earlier in the day, recalls the chaos and confusion. “I knew what had happened because I saw it in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Harry McEnerny (Greg Maraio), an EMT at Beth Israel, feared another blast in the Longwood Medical Area. “We were scared.” But as first responder Justin Stratton points out, no one who left the race alive died in the hospital. The life-saving efforts were Herculean.

The third act tells the stories of against-all-odds recovery and resilience. King says his patients are remarkable, like a “Phoenix rising.” Actress Amie Lytle, portraying Ericka Brannock, a Baltimore preschool teacher who lost her leg and was the last to leave the critical-care unit, delivers the most inspiring story, dotted with humor (she has a cat named Fenway) and pathos. Her defining moment is not the tragedy, but “how I come out of it.” Ditto for the rest of the city.

Frangieh and Rafferty never veer from their theme of unity. In the end, the entire cast takes the stage, while Rachel Belleman sweetly sings Frangieh’s “Rise.”

The show also pays tribute to Sean Collier, the fallen MIT police officer who once worked in Hull, and officer Dennis “D.J.” Simmonds of Hyde Park, originally from Randolph, who died a year after the bombings from wounds sustained in the Watertown shootout.

Three dollars of every ticket will be donated to the Martin Richard Foundation, named for the 8-year-old boy who was the youngest victim killed in the attack.

Theater review

FINISH LINE: A DOCUMENTARY PLAY ABOUT THE 2013 BOSTON MARATHON

Presented by the Boch Center in association with the Boston Theater Company, through March 26 at the Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont St., Boston. $47.50-$57.50, 866-348-9738, bochcenter.org

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@ledger.com or follow her on Twitter @dbarbuto_Ledger.